New theory claims that crying babies help win wars.

Tomer Ullman has a wonderful new theory of why babies cry. The reason? It made our savanna ancestors angry and helped them beat their competitors in battle. I’ll let him explain:

As you will have hopefully have gathered HE’S JOKING!!!

His presentation was the winning entry at the 2013 BahFest, A celebration of bad but funny hypoetheses. Here’s how the organisers describe the event:

The first ever Festival of Bad Ad Hoc Hypotheses (BAH!) was held on October 6th at MIT’s Kresge Auditorium. It was the first of what we hope will be many celebrations of well-argued and thoroughly researched but completely incorrect evolutionary theory. Our brave speakers presented their bad theories in front of a live audience and a panel of judges with real science credentials, who together determined who took home the coveted sculpture of Darwin shrugging skeptically. And eternal glory, of course.

UPDATE:
It seems that babies were a rich field for bad hypothesis. Here’s festival founder Zach Weinersmith’s own entry to the competition a incredible new theory of genetic dispersal through catapulted infants